IAN SINCLAIR reviews new releases from The Beaches, CMAT and Katheleen Edwards
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Shaping up to greatness
Guillermo del Toro's surreal love story marks him out as a film-maker on the road to outstanding achievement, says MARIA DUARTE
RICHARD MURGATROYD is intrigued by a study that asks why the ability to diagnose outstrips the ability to cure
SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a sweeping survey of the world's biggest desert and the people who live there
MICHAL BONCZA highly recommends a revelatory exhibition of work by the doyen of indigenous Australians’ art, Emily Kam Kngwarray
The Bard commutes to work for the first time in 45 years
DAVID RENTON is puzzled by an ambitious attempt to look back on world culture from the future without engaging with or understanding it
The Shape of Water (15)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
LITTLE could Guillermo del Toro's six-year-old self have imagined that his discovery of the Creature from the Black Lagoon and subsequent love of monsters would one day result in an Oscar-nominated cinematic wonder.
Creepy yet delightfully charming and touching, The Shape of Water is a spellbinding and visually arresting adult fairytale set in the US in 1962 against the backdrop of the cold war and it's on a par with his great works such as Pan's Labyrinth, Cronos and The Devil's Backbone.
Del Toro, who co-wrote and directed, combines the classic monster horror genre with film noir and encases it in a powerful love story with a musical number reminiscent of The Singing Detective thrown in.
More from this author
MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable documentary, culled from 20 years of smartphone footage, that documents the trials of being a single parent
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
MARIA DUARTE recommends the ambitious portrait of an agricultural community confronted by the trauma of enclosure
MARIA DUARTE recommends a chilling examination of the influence of Evangelical Christianity over the far right in Brazil
